00:00:00:00 - 00:00:13:16
Matt Haycox
You know, I always say that perfection prevents opportunity. Perfection prevents profit. And that is because, you know, ultimately life is not about idea - business is not about the idea, it’s about the execution, about getting on and doing it.

00:00:16:23 - 00:00:46:16
Matt Haycox
Guys, Matt Haycox here. And welcome to my new podcast format, Matt Haycox Daily. For those of you that know me already, you will obviously know who I am. You may know me from one of my other podcasts, probably primarily The Matt Haycox Show. But for those of you that don't know me, as I say, my name is Matt Haycox, and I am an entrepreneur and an investor, and I always like to say that I have lived a life of problems, of making mistakes, but I've done them so you don't have to because I get to share my mistakes, share my experiences and learnings with you guys.

00:00:46:16 - 00:01:11:13
Matt Haycox
And you can benefit by sidestepping the problems, short cutting to the solutions and getting the success much quicker and much less painlessly than I ever did. And that's what these podcasts are all about. I get to share my knowledge. I get to share my experiences with you guys so you can benefit and go and implement them. Now, like I say, some of you guys may already know me from The Matt Haycox Show, my other podcast, and that's something like 160 episodes deep now.

00:01:11:13 - 00:01:32:03
Matt Haycox
But I said that for 2022, I was going to, well 2023 rather, I was going to start two new podcast formats and that's what I've done. I'm recording this on the 7th of January, I think it is. And we have already launched last week HR Zone, which is my second podcast format, which is all about my HR journey, my people management problems and solutions.

00:01:32:03 - 00:01:53:16
Matt Haycox
I recently hired a head of people, Chief People Officer. Lady called Kelly McGowan, and we are very much working together to change and improve cultural problems in my business and make human resources and people very much at the forefront of what we do. And it's a relatively new concept for me, not something I have just learnt about, but certainly, if I’m being very honest, something that I am only just putting into practice.

00:01:53:16 - 00:02:11:14
Matt Haycox
And I know I'm not alone when it comes to SME businesses and their attitudes towards human resources. So I thought I'd share my journey, give you guys an interesting story to listen to and hopefully you can see why I believe that Human Resources is an investment and not cost, and you can make some of the same improvements and investments in your own business.

00:02:11:17 - 00:02:31:13
Matt Haycox
So that was a second format podcast and this format for Matt Haycox Daily is really going to be three, four, five times a week. Very quick episode, 3 minutes to 10 minutes, probably, and they're just going to be tips. Each episode will be a single tip a single strategy, a single piece of advice, maybe a bit of a topic or commentary on something that's going on in the business world at that time.

00:02:31:13 - 00:02:46:10
Matt Haycox
Just something I can share with you guys that you can learn about when you're in your taxi on the way to work, on the bus, on the toilet, wherever you want to listen to your podcast and get something actionable that you can implement that day and take away with you. So without further ado, let's get on with this first episode.

00:02:46:10 - 00:03:06:04
Matt Haycox
And what I actually wanna talk to you about in this first episode is a story of me launching these podcasts because I think there's a really important lesson in just getting on and doing it and not waiting for perfection. Using perfection either as an excuse for just trying to make something perfect and ultimately missing out on opportunities. You know, I always say that perfection prevents opportunity.

00:03:06:04 - 00:03:36:24
Matt Haycox
Perfection prevents profit, and that is because, you know, ultimately life is not about idea - business is not about the idea, it’s about the execution, about getting on and doing it and being in the market and meeting customers, making sales, generating income, and then ultimately taking feedback at that point and changing your product accordingly. Now I was having this conversation with one of the heads of divisions in one of my businesses at the very beginning of this year saying the real ethos for the division this year has to be, ‘If we're happy with the product at the point of launching it, then we've waited too long to launch it.’

00:03:37:04 - 00:03:55:06
Matt Haycox
And by that what I mean is it's very easy to wait for that perfection and by the time you've got the perfection, you've missed weeks or months or potentially even years, depending on what your product and what your business is, of opportunity to be out there selling it to me, out there showing it off and getting real life interaction with your customers. And with a podcast,

00:03:55:06 - 00:04:10:03
Matt Haycox
I mean, that for me is one of the perfect examples of things where people have always got an excuse, where they always wait for that perfection and before they know it, they're a year down the line and they still haven't launched the first episode. So I thought, look, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and really try and practice what I preach here.

00:04:10:05 - 00:04:26:09
Matt Haycox
So when I decided that we create this HR Zone podcast, I thought, well, look, how quick can we actually really just get it out there. Look, it’s not gonna be perfect. 100% is not going to be perfect, but it will be good enough to put into the market, to get me out there in front of an audience and then I can correct as we move on.

00:04:26:09 - 00:04:46:09
Matt Haycox
So, the real life numbers on this were, it took me about 30 minutes, 35 minutes to record that first episode. I recorded it over an online streaming podcast package, something called StreamYard. I used to record all of my digital podcasts. I mean, you don't have to use that. You can use Zoom or there's plenty of other tools out there, but I've always found StreamYard to be very good for us.

00:04:46:09 - 00:05:02:14
Matt Haycox
So it took me about 30-35 minutes to record it. I sent it to my editor and he probably spent an hour hacking the audio around a little bit, put an introduction music on, put an outro on there. I probably spent while he was doing that, an hour, an hour and a half setting up something we use called Buzz Stream.

00:05:03:01 - 00:05:22:18
Matt Haycox
Sorry, not Buzz Stream, BuzzSprout. BuzzSprout is.. it’s a podcast distribution platform. You upload your podcast onto there and that spits it out and distributes it to iTunes, to Spotify, to iHeart Radio, anywhere that people normally listen to a podcast. So you use a distribution service like that. So you just have to upload it once and then that does all the heavy lifting for you.

00:05:22:23 - 00:05:38:06
Matt Haycox
So it probably took me an hour to set up BuzzSprouts, get it onto iTunes, etc. etc. And to be clear, I've never done that before. When we set up The Matt Haycox Show podcast, someone else did it for me. So I had to log into BuzzSprout, use a few of their online videos to learn about what I was doing and did it myself.

00:05:38:06 - 00:05:54:14
Matt Haycox
That took me about an hour. We needed a cover image, which Ben, my editor, made for us, and that was it. It was up and live. Honestly within, I think 3 hours, three and a half hours we recorded a podcast. We set up a new distribution stream, we edited it and we got it live. Now, is it perfect? Absolutely not.

00:05:54:14 - 00:06:15:18
Matt Haycox
The format that we use for the podcast will improve as the weeks go on. The cover image, the image that's on the like the album cover of a music album almost. It's not perfect. It's not bad, it'll do the job for now, but we'll need to improve it a little bit over time. And the music, the jingle we've used on the podcast, we used the same jingle that we used on The Matt Haycox Show, which ultimately I want it to have its own one, and over the coming weeks we'll have time to do that.

00:06:15:18 - 00:06:34:14
Matt Haycox
But if I'd have waited to get all of those individual things perfect, that could have taken me a week at best, if not a few weeks, and that is another few weeks down the line of not having a podcast up there out in the market. Now, I guarantee you absolutely guarantee you as much as I noticed all those problems, nobody else listening to the podcast is going to notice that.

00:06:34:17 - 00:06:48:15
Matt Haycox
I mean, not one person is going to look and go, ‘Oh, look at that image, that needs changing’, or they're not going to listen to the jingle, the introduction jingle and think, ‘That's the same jingle that he uses on The Matt Haycox Show. He really should have a different one.’ But these are just perfection problems that I need to change.

00:06:48:15 - 00:07:08:09
Matt Haycox
And by, let’s say by, not really ignoring them, but by tolerating them now in exchange for getting a product out to the market quicker, I've been able to literally record and launch a podcast in three and a half hours. Now, I know people have been talking about launching a podcast for three and a half years and I've done it in three and a half hours. Now I'm not telling you the story to tell you, ‘Oh, I'm so great.

00:07:08:09 - 00:07:25:22
Matt Haycox
I can launch a podcast in three and a half hours.’ I just really want to drum home to the concept of how important it is that execution is everything. Getting your product out in the marketplace is everything, and if you've got something that is a minimum viable product, something that's 65, 70, 75% perfect offering, just get it out there.

00:07:25:22 - 00:07:44:08
Matt Haycox
I mean, in the last, so I'm recording this on a Sunday night. I launched that last podcast on the Friday morning. I think it was. In the last 48 hours, it's had 50 downloads. Nothing exciting. I mean, I've only promoted it on Instagram. We've not done any email promotion, not done any cross-promotion through my other channels, literally just put it on Instagram and it's had 50 downloads.

00:07:44:08 - 00:08:01:19
Matt Haycox
So if I had waited and waited, that would have been another two days where those 50 people wouldn't have had it. 50 people wouldn't have been exposed to me, to my products, to my podcast, etc.. So like I say, this is my ethos in all of my business divisions. But one particular business division, like I said, I was talking to chief executive, the MD.

00:08:01:19 - 00:08:21:09
Matt Haycox
And I really wanted to hammer that concept home for them and I thought, I'm going to test it myself. I'm going to put it where my - put my money, where my mouth is and give it a whirl. And I've been happy with it. And I'm applying the same logic to this podcast here. I’m recording this. I'm literally, I’m sat in bed on a Sunday night with my headset on recording this on a like an audio memo recording thing on my iPhone.

00:08:21:10 - 00:08:38:03
Matt Haycox
Is it perfect? Would it be better in a studio? Would it be better with various other things? Look, I'm sure it would be. But right now I think this is good enough to get it out to the market. You know what? If you don't think it is, if you think this audio is poor quality, if you think I could have done this better in some way, please send me an email, drop me a DM on social media.

00:08:38:03 - 00:08:57:15
Matt Haycox
You can always get in touch with me @TheMattHaycox. That’s T H E M A T T H A Y C O X on all things social. You can drop me an email at matt@matt-haycox.com. I always want to hear from you. I always want to hear your problems, your reviews, your constructive criticism. And for these weekly episodes or rather these daily episodes of Matt Haycox Daily.

00:08:57:16 - 00:09:13:13
Matt Haycox
If you've got some topics you want to talk about, some questions you want to ask, drop me those as well. But in the meantime, I hope you find that useful. It's been fun recording this. As always, and I’m gonna look forward to getting episode number 2, 3, 4 out this week. Like I said, we're going to bash three or four of these out a week and I hope you like it.

00:09:13:13 - 00:09:30:04
Matt Haycox
I hope you like the new format. Something just a little quicker, a little punchier than what we've done already, but hopefully something that will add value to you and your business or your life. So today's message was all about not allowing perfection to stand in the way of your success. If you've got an idea, get it to market today.

00:09:30:06 - 00:09:50:06
Matt Haycox
The quicker you get to market, the quicker you can be building an audience, the quicker you can be earning some income. I've done it with this podcast. You go and do it with your product. I’ve been Matt Haycox, it's been a pleasure. Episode number one of Matt Haycox Daily. I'll see you next day.